The Northmen in Britain

by Eleanor Hull

Then the King came forward and looked closely at the dress which had withstood the venom of the serpents. He saw that it was rough and hairy, and he laughed loudly at the shaggy breeches, which gave Ragnar an uncouth appearance. He called him in jest Lodbrog (Lod-brokr), or “Hairy-breeks,” and the nickname stuck to him all his life. Having laid aside his shaggy raiment and put on his kingly attire, Ragnar received the maiden as the reward of his victory. He had several sons, of whom the youngest, Ivar, was well known in after years in Britain and Ireland, and left a race of rulers there.

Ladgerda

Meanwhile the ill-disposed people of his own kingdom, which seems to have included the districts we now know as Zealand or Jutland, one of those small divisions into which the Northern countries were at that time broken up,[3] during the absence of Ragnar stirred up the inhabitants to depose him and set up one Harald as king. Ragnar, hearing of this, and having few men at his command, sent envoys to Norway to ask for assistance. They gathered a small host together, of weak and strong, young and old, whomsoever they could get, and had a hard fight with the rebels. It is said that Ivar, though he was hardly seven years of age, fought splendidly, and seemed a man in courage though only a boy in years. Siward, or Sigurd Snake-eye, Ragnar’s eldest son, received a terrible wound, which it is said that Woden, the father of the gods of the North, came himself to cure. The battle would have gone against Ragnar but for the courage of a noble woman named Ladgerda, who, “like an Amazon possessed of the courage of a man,” came to the hero’s assistance with a hundred and twenty ships and herself fought in front of the host with her loose hair flying about her shoulders. All marvelled at her matchless deeds, for she had the spirit of a warrior in a slender frame, and when the soldiers began to waver she made a sally, taking the enemy unawares on the rear, so that Harald was routed with a great slaughter of his men. This was by no means the only occasion in the history of these times that we hear of women-warriors; both in the North and in Ireland women often went into battle, sometimes forming whole female battalions. The women of the North were brave, pure, and spirited, though often fierce and bitter. They took their part in many ways beside their husbands and sons.

About this time Thora, Ragnar’s wife, died suddenly of an illness, which caused infinite sorrow to her husband, who dearly loved his spouse. He thought to assuage his grief by setting himself some heavy task, which would occupy his mind and energies. After arranging for the administration of justice at home, and training for war all the young men, feeble or strong, who came to him, he determined to cross over to Britain, since he had heard of the dissensions that were going on, and the weakness of the country. This was before the time of Ælla, when, as the Danish annals tell us, his father, Hame, “a most noble youth,” was reigning in Northumbria. This king, Ragnar attacked and killed, and then, leaving his young and favourite son to rule the Danish settlers of Northumbria, he went north to Scotland, conquered parts of Pictland, or the North of Scotland, and of the Western Isles, where he made two others of his sons, Siward Snake-eye and Radbard, governors.

Having thus formed for himself a kingdom in the British Isles, and left his sons to rule over it, Ragnar departed for a time, and the next few years were spent in repressing insurrections in his own kingdom of Jutland, and in a long series of viking raids in Sweden, Saxony, Germany, and France. His own sons were continually making insurrections against him. Ivar only, who seems to have been recalled and made governor of Jutland, took no part in his brothers’ quarrels, but remained throughout faithful to his father, by whom he was held in the highest honour and affection. Another son, Ubba, of whom we hear in the English chronicles, alternately rebelled against his father and was received into favour by him. Then, again, Ragnar turned his thoughts to the West, and, descending on the Orkneys, ravaged there, planting some of those viking settlements of which we hear at the opening of Scottish history as being established on the coasts and islands. But two of his sons were slain, and Ragnar returned home in grief, shutting himself up in his house and bemoaning their loss, and that of a wife whom he had recently married. He was soon awakened from his sorrow by the news that Ivar, whom he had left in Northumbria, had been expelled from the country, and had arrived in Denmark, his own people having made him fly when Ælla was set up as king.[4] Ragnar immediately roused himself from his dejection, gave orders for the assembling of his fleet, and sailed down on Northumbria, disembarking near York. He took Ivar with him to guide his forces, as he was now well acquainted with the country. Here, as we learn from the English chronicles, the battle of York was fought, lasting three days, and costing much blood to the English, but comparatively little to the Danes. The only real difference between the Danish and English accounts is that the Northern story says that Ælla was not killed, but had to fly for a time to Ireland, and it is probable that this is true. Ragnar also extended his arms to Ireland, after a year in Northumbria, besieged Dublin, and slew its king, Maelbride (or Melbrik, as the Norse called him), and then, filling his ships with the wealth of the city, which was very rich, he sailed to the Hellespont, winning victories everywhere, and gaining for himself the title of the first of the great viking kings.

But it was fated to Ragnar that he was to die in the country he had conquered, and when he returned to Northumbria from his foreign expeditions he was taken prisoner by Ælla, and cast into a pit, where serpents were let loose upon him and devoured him. No word of complaint came from the lips of the courageous old man while he was suffering these tortures; instead, he recounted in fine verse the triumphs of his life and the dangers of his career. This poem we still possess. Only when the serpents were gnawing at his heart he was heard to exclaim: “If the little pigs knew the punishment of the old boar, surely they would break into the sty and loose him from his woe.” These words were related to Ælla, who thought from them that some of Ragnar’s sons, whom he called the “little pigs,” must still be alive: and he bade the executioners stop the torture and bring Ragnar out of the pit. But when they ran to do so they found that Ragnar was dead; his face scarred by pain, but steadfast as in life. Death had taken him out of the hand of the king.

In Ragnar Lodbrog’s death-song he recites in succession his triumphs and gallant deeds, his wars and battles, in England, Scotland, Mona, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and abroad. Each stanza begins, “We hewed with our swords!” Here are the final verses, as the serpents, winding around him, came ever nearer to his heart.

Ragnar Lodbrog’s Death-song

We hewed with our swords!